Microsoft has gone back to the drawing board and come out with another gaming mouse, the Sidewinder X8. The unit does have some cool features in it but also some not so cool ones.

The Bluetrack technology is said to allow the X8 to be used on practically any surface. So I put that to the test on – the wall, the frosted glass desk, the LCD monitor, my jeans, my palm, a glass (yes the side of a glass), a plastic bottle and the back of my head. The only thing it didn’t work on was the surface of a burned DVD. Heck, it even worked on my window!

So what does all that prove? Well it proves that you could potentially use this mouse just about anywhere. But does it make it a good gaming mouse? With up to 4000 dpi and 13,000 fps it’s definitely got the tech to make it a good one. Plus it’s got a decent enough software, Intellipoint 6.3, that gives you some customization, macros and button settings. On top of that you can enable program specific settings in a fairly intuitive way.